Sorry to hear about the terrifying ride. I think several of us have had similar experiences. When on two wheels, there are no seatbelts. Ugh. If anyone has a caster shake problem, check for a bent steel fork, or even an incorrect offset with a carbon fork. Sometimes, less offset, never more, will help. Barring that, try going to a wider tire with a tread. Only go wide enough to stop the problem. On most roads, a 23 mm tire is the best for aerodynamics and ride, but if a 25 mm tire stops the shakes, then that is the solution. A 25 mm tire really isn’t all that much wider than a 23mm tire and on most roads, it shouldn’t slow down the bike.
Dear Thomas,
“YES”, rotational wheel balance is extremely important. The majority of the bicycle world, including the reply you got from http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/ who dismisses wheel balance as a non issue are completely wrong and have no idea how lethal and dangerous wheels can be (especially carbon wheels), at high speeds.
The assumption that a slightly unbalanced wheel set, when some one gets on the bike their weight cancels any unbalance issues is completely wrong. As a matter of fact when two unbalanced wheels are sandwiched between the weight of the rider and the solid ground, it not only causes severe handling & rolling efficiency problems but creates a skyrocketing powder keg of danger between the rider’s legs at high speeds.
I road raced motorcycles for many years before I became a professional Cat 1 bike racer, and always knew the value of wheel balance which is why I always balanced my bicycle race wheels. At the time in So Cal and Mexico I was the fastest descender and attribute most of my speed and safety to perfect wheel balance.
For decades I wondered what really happens to a set of unbalanced wheels at high speed, so I got a group of investors to put together a technical team from Washington State University and a NASA vibration expert using powerful vibration apps, accelerometers & high speed cameras to document and record unbalanced vs balanced wheels. What we found was not only astonishing but also very disturbing.
Most carbon wheels together with the tire are off balanced on the average of 7 ~ 20 grams! Think that a small plastic wheel reflector weighs about 17 grams, would you race or ride your fancy carbon wheels with a set of reflectors??? Guess what, that is exactly what you are doing every time you go riding your carbon wheels.
The difference between having a severely out of balance wheels or near perfect balanced wheels is Sheer Luck.
- If your bike feels good and steady at high speed that means you are lucky that your wheels are fairly balanced.
- If your bike begins to get nervous at high speed that means your wheels are slightly out of balance.
- If your bike tends to go into a high speed wobble your wheels are seriously out of balance.
To avoid this by LUCK technical performance, just balance your wheels and you will automatically get optimum handling, rolling, safety performance. You bike at high speed will handle like its on rails.
So… Think how bicycle technology evolves:
- Carbon technology, critics said really? Steel is just fine, no one wants a plastic bike.
- Aerodynamics, critics said, Oh please, there is no big advantage unless your body can be shaped like a wing, give it up.
- Wheel Balance, critics said, What’s the point the moment a rider gets on a bike it cancels any slight unbalance on the wheels.
The bottom line is this, the next generation of the modern race wheel will not be able to be created until a good wheel balance system is incorporated into the wheel and tire.
Check out dynamicspeedbalance.com and click on HOW DSB WORKS. I here we are the first in the world to conduct any type of scientific bicycle wheel balance testing.
Sincerely
Dan Sotelo
Dynamic Speed Balance
The difference between having a severely out of balance wheels or near perfect balanced wheels is Sheer Luck.
- If your bike feels good and steady at high speed that means you are lucky that your wheels are fairly balanced.
- If your bike begins to get nervous at high speed that means your wheels are slightly out of balance.
- If your bike tends to go into a high speed wobble your wheels are seriously out of balance.
My wheels are way out of balance. I ride >50mph descents all the time. There is no problem. I can’t even feel any vibration from it.
My wheels are way out of balance. I ride >50mph descents all the time. There is no problem. I can’t even feel any vibration from it.
Same here. Don’t spend money trying to cure a problem that doesn’t exist.
The difference between having a severely out of balance wheels or near perfect balanced wheels is Sheer Luck.
- If your bike feels good and steady at high speed that means you are lucky that your wheels are fairly balanced.
- If your bike begins to get nervous at high speed that means your wheels are slightly out of balance.
- If your bike tends to go into a high speed wobble your wheels are seriously out of balance.
My wheels are way out of balance. I ride >50mph descents all the time. There is no problem. I can’t even feel any vibration from it.
My experience as well.
Dear Thomas,
“YES”, rotational wheel balance is extremely important. The majority of the bicycle world, including the reply you got from http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/ who dismisses wheel balance as a non issue are completely wrong and have no idea how lethal and dangerous wheels can be (especially carbon wheels), at high speeds.
The assumption that a slightly unbalanced wheel set, when some one gets on the bike their weight cancels any unbalance issues is completely wrong. As a matter of fact when two unbalanced wheels are sandwiched between the weight of the rider and the solid ground, it not only causes severe handling & rolling efficiency problems but creates a skyrocketing powder keg of danger between the rider’s legs at high speeds.
I road raced motorcycles for many years before I became a professional Cat 1 bike racer, and always knew the value of wheel balance which is why I always balanced my bicycle race wheels. At the time in So Cal and Mexico I was the fastest descender and attribute most of my speed and safety to perfect wheel balance.
For decades I wondered what really happens to a set of unbalanced wheels at high speed, so I got a group of investors to put together a technical team from Washington State University and a NASA vibration expert using powerful vibration apps, accelerometers & high speed cameras to document and record unbalanced vs balanced wheels. What we found was not only astonishing but also very disturbing.
Most carbon wheels together with the tire are off balanced on the average of 7 ~ 20 grams! Think that a small plastic wheel reflector weighs about 17 grams, would you race or ride your fancy carbon wheels with a set of reflectors??? Guess what, that is exactly what you are doing every time you go riding your carbon wheels.
The difference between having a severely out of balance wheels or near perfect balanced wheels is Sheer Luck.
- If your bike feels good and steady at high speed that means you are lucky that your wheels are fairly balanced.
- If your bike begins to get nervous at high speed that means your wheels are slightly out of balance.
- If your bike tends to go into a high speed wobble your wheels are seriously out of balance.
To avoid this by LUCK technical performance, just balance your wheels and you will automatically get optimum handling, rolling, safety performance. You bike at high speed will handle like its on rails.
So… Think how bicycle technology evolves:
- Carbon technology, critics said really? Steel is just fine, no one wants a plastic bike.
- Aerodynamics, critics said, Oh please, there is no big advantage unless your body can be shaped like a wing, give it up.
- Wheel Balance, critics said, What’s the point the moment a rider gets on a bike it cancels any slight unbalance on the wheels.
The bottom line is this, the next generation of the modern race wheel will not be able to be created until a good wheel balance system is incorporated into the wheel and tire.
Check out dynamicspeedbalance.com and click on HOW DSB WORKS. I here we are the first in the world to conduct any type of scientific bicycle wheel balance testing.
Sincerely
Dan Sotelo
Dynamic Speed Balance
Ironically enough (in regards to your entire post, but specifically about all-carbon wheels) most aluminum rims and aluminum/carbon cap hybrid wheels are naturally “balanced” when a tube is installed due to the mass of the valve offsetting the mass of the aluminum rim joining sleeve typically placed opposite the valve hole.
So…sounds like wheel imbalance is an improper wheel construction selection problem mostly…in other words, once again, full carbon construction for bicycle wheels is a mis-optimization (full carbon wheels don’t have that built in mass) 
Hey…so, you’ve got all those videos showing the shaking and oscillations…IN A BIKE STAND. How is the mass of the rider represented in those tests?
Where’s the data from on-road testing? The proof is in the tasting of THAT pudding…
Don’t take the bait, people. This is a spam post created by a spammer that registered as a user today. I presume they will respond to other posts that contain “wheel balance” keywords in them at a later time.
The difference between having a severely out of balance wheels or near perfect balanced wheels is Sheer Luck.
- If your bike feels good and steady at high speed that means you are lucky that your wheels are fairly balanced.
- If your bike begins to get nervous at high speed that means your wheels are slightly out of balance.
- If your bike tends to go into a high speed wobble your wheels are seriously out of balance.
My wheels are way out of balance. I ride >50mph descents all the time. There is no problem. I can’t even feel any vibration from it.
Something is out of balance in this thread, and it ain’t bike wheels.
Don’t take the bait, people. This is a spam post created by a spammer that registered as a user today. I presume they will respond to other posts that contain “wheel balance” keywords in them at a later time.
When I was a young lad, “DSB” stood for something completely different…
My wheels are way out of balance. I ride >50mph descents all the time. There is no problem. I can’t even feel any vibration from it.
Twenty (?) years ago when I first rode my Trek 5200, it had a bad wobble at high speed going downhill. Took it back to the bike shop. They removed the reflectors attached to the wheel spokes and wobble was gone. Based on my n=1 experience, I would guess that wheel imbalance is frequently a contributing factor to wobble/death wobble – and maybe enough of a contribution that if eliminated, wobble is eliminated. The whole wobble experience happens because of compounding of frequency triggers, get rid of one trigger and the whole compounding may go away.
Of course, I am not endorsing anyone’s product, but it makes sense to me that a DIY static balance might be worth the investment.
I have a pair of Profile Design carbon wheels that scared the crap out of me twice, both times descending at about 35-40mph. I had a “less than stellar” bike fit, and attributed it too my bar being too far out ahead of the fork. I also run 23mm front and 25mm rear tires. A year ago I put those same wheels on a P3 after a good fit, and have not had it happen again. So the problem being in the fork and not the wheels makes sense to me (or maybe my brain has just convinced itself it saw a correlation where none exists).
My wheels are way out of balance. I ride >50mph descents all the time. There is no problem. I can’t even feel any vibration from it.
Twenty (?) years ago when I first rode my Trek 5200, it had a bad wobble at high speed going downhill. Took it back to the bike shop. They removed the reflectors attached to the wheel spokes and wobble was gone. Based on my n=1 experience, I would guess that wheel imbalance is frequently a contributing factor to wobble/death wobble – and maybe enough of a contribution that if eliminated, wobble is eliminated. The whole wobble experience happens because of compounding of frequency triggers, get rid of one trigger and the whole compounding may go away.
Of course, I am not endorsing anyone’s product, but it makes sense to me that a DIY static balance might be worth the investment.
A few years back, I mounted some flashing wheel light units onto my commuter bike wheels (they were a cheap set of lights I picked up at Costco - but they drew cool pictures in the spokes!). The amount of wheel imbalance these things added was HUGE since it was a single unit in each wheel between 2 spokes (not distributed around the wheel) and each light unit housed 4 AA batteries.
In normal riding, I couldn’t really feel anything different, but going down a hill on the way to work (hitting ~40-50kph) I could feel the imbalance…but mostly ONLY when the imbalances happened to be lined up with each other…and guess what? The imbalance was NOT felt as up and down, or side to side wobble in the steering, but as a FORE and AFT surging motion. Which makes sense since my mass doesn’t resist the motion much in that direction.
So…based on that wildly mis-balanced case, I’d have to say that any claims attributed to balancing the extremely mild imbalances (relative to the mass of the ENTIRE system) of typical bicycle wheels are highly overwrought.
A cold day in hell 
Are people reading?? Old thread revived by brand new guy with something to sell. Seems legit.
A cold day in hell
Are people reading?? Old thread revived by brand new guy with something to sell. Seems legit.
But, but, but … he’s a “professional Cat 1 bike racer”. Never mind that a Cat 1 is by definition an amateur.
I read this thread with interest. It reminded me of this Silca product launched 1-2 years ago that didn’t seem to attract much attention at the time.
Thoughts on its usefulness…?
https://silca.cc/products/speedbalance-wheel-balancing-and-computer-magnet-system
I am surprised Josh from Silca has not seen this thread and commented. I suspect he feels wheel balance is a thing, they sell a wheel balancing kit on their site and I think I recall a blog post regarding dynamic imbalances from Silca. From the silca web site: "
What is it?
SpeedBalance is the world’s first Aerodynamic Wheel Magnet AND tunable balancing system for high performance cycling. SpeedBalance replaces your spoke magnet with a rim mounted aerodynamic magnet that can save up to 1 watt at 30mph. 4 Tungsten slugs inside the SpeedBalance weigh 2.5 grams each allow for custom wheel balancing up to 10 grams to offset valve stem weight and create perfectly balanced wheels to eliminate high speed vibrations and improve handling."
Just now seeing this!!
Yes, we make and continue to sell the Speedbalance kits and I’d say that probably 90% of buyers comeback and buy more… 10% ‘can’t feel it’
In many ways this product reminds me of oval chainrings, people who like it, love it and most other people think it’s witchcraft. I will say that if you balance your deep wheels and ride them for a few weeks and then take it away, you will want the balance back, but similar to TomA’s point, you can intentionally imbalance a wheel and ride it around and it’s not the end of the world.
We made this product originally because we had committed customers in the pro teams… I started balancing wheels for guys like back in the CSC days for Carlos Sastre and Cancellara, and carried it over to HTC, QuickStep and others. For the ProTour guys there are some different factors in play, tubular tires have all of the overlaps at the valve, so the latex inner tube is sleeved/bonded at the valve, the valve stem has to have a special butyl flange that’s bonded to this sleeve, the valve itself has mass and then both the casing and base tape overlaps are at the valve. Similarly carbon wheels generally have their internal overlaps at the valve because of the need to reinforce the hole from the compression caused by the spokes, this is a failure mode known as ‘open hole compression’ failure and it’s something carbon isn’t all that good at… so rims have to be reinforced here…which means more weight. Lastly, probably 80% of the tubular tires in the pro peloton still use brass valves… so this adds to the problem.
Some carbon wheel brands add counterbalance to the rim, but at most it’s usually enough to balance the wheel without tire. So having said all that, when we introduced the 808, suddenly we had guys losing their minds over this imbalance thing as you had a 400 gram rim with 220gram tire and 20 grams of imbalance… you can most definitely feel it… we then did the 1080 and it was even worse. So I used to do 3-4 trips to europe to balance wheels for the teams using epoxy and ball bearings inside a spoke hole which is where the idea for Speedbalance came from.
Fast forward to 2 years ago, we landed our Bora sponsorship almost entirely due to their need for Speedbalance kits and then Specialized banned them from using the kit as it made the wheel look like it had a problem. Since then, literally every brand in the peloton disallows the kit to be used, so we end up selling tons of the little tungsten slugs to the teams who either epoxy or silicone caulk them into the inside of the rim as needed. We currently help EF and Bora with this issue and sell tungsten to 4 other teams directly.
I would not go as far as saying that balancing a wheel will eliminate speed wobble… I think that imbalance may play a roll in speed wobble in some circumstances, but that it is unlikely to be a causal factor in most of them. I will say that some riders are very sensitive to the effects of balance, particularly at high speeds and we sell lots of these kits in mountainous regions of the world where riders are hitting high speeds, it is quite common to hear from riders just back from the Alps or Rockies who are looking for a kit after thinking they were experiencing the onset of speed wobble, but it was actually just them feeling an imbalance at speeds higher than they are used to riding.
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Seems like there would be a podcast that could touch on a topic like this…
so we end up selling tons of the little tungsten slugs to the teams who either epoxy or silicone caulk them into the inside of the rim as needed.
The wheelbuilder website says (brass) nipples weigh about a gram. If you made oversize (extended length on the interior of the wheel) tungsten nipples, they could weigh three or four grams apiece, and no one could tell… Machining them would be a bear though.